Duke of Gordon Hotel (Ghillies Rest Bar), Kingussie

This friendly hotel with origins in the eighteenth century was originally built as a stopover for passengers travelling by stage coach along the old A9 to Inverness and the North of Scotland.

The hotel is used as a base by the MacPherson Clan when clan members from all over the world visit the Highlands every year for their international rally at the Duke.

Food is served in the impressive Balmoral Restaurant with its heavily corniced ceilings and Peddie murals depicting Scottish Highland history.

One other thing which "engineers" my be interested in is that Duke of Gordon Hotel invested heavily in "green" energy some years ago, and apart from changing ALL of their lamps to low energy, they also have two biomass electric generators, and boilers which use a wood chip technology.

We are certain that all of the electrical and heating for hot water for baths / showers / kitchens used at Duke of Gordon was sourced "on site" and the net electrical energy is exported to the National Grid.

In 2013, Paul Brown, Manager at Duke of Gordon, stated that "Ghillies does close at about 9pm when we have entertainment on in the Ballroom, non residents are very welcome to go through and join the hotel guests at all times. The bar staff will indeed be happy to serve the hand pump beer from Ghillies bar in this bar too."

"We do not keep the Ghillies bar open for just a couple of customers and most evenings the people in the Ghillies Bar will got through to the other room for the live entertainment & dancing."

There have been reports (July 2022) that Ghillies can be more generally closed in the evening, presumably a response to post-pandemic staffing levels.